Download National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam

National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam
Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, 2002
From World History in Context
During the U.S. War in Vietnam (also known as the Second Indochinese War), in a major move to
overthrow the U.S.­backed Saigon regime in South Vietnam and establish Communist rule throughout
the country, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) leadership established the National Front for
the Liberation of South Vietnam (NFLSV) on 20 December 1960 in Tay Ninh Province. After six years of
trying to unify the country through political means, the Vietnamese Communist Party (Lao Dong Party)
had concluded that armed violence was the best way to do so.
The NFLSV, usually known as the National Liberation Front (NLF), was typical of most Communist­front
organizations. It drew its membership from the South Vietnamese who were anti­Diem—or opposed
South Vietnam's government—and anti­American, including Communists and non­Communists alike.
For example, Nguyen Huu Tho (1910–1994), a supposed non­Communist, presided over the
Communist Party–dominated NLF.
The NLF, known as the Viet Cong by its enemies, was perceived by U.S. policymakers as a purely
Hanoi­directed movement. These policymakers argued that if the flow of supplies and troops to the NLF
was halted, the southern revolution would die and the Diem regime would remain safe, justifying
American involvement in the conflict. Others argued that the conflict in the south was a locally based
insurgency and that the NLF was a southern organization that had risen organically from the people
opposed to Diem.
Throughout the war the NLF staged assaults through its military arm, the People's Liberation Armed
Forces (PLAF), on U.S. and ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) forces. The most dramatic
of these assaults was the 1968 Tet Offensive. Beginning in 1968, the NFLSV sent representatives to
the Paris peace talks, and it played a major role in forming the Provisional Revolutionary Government
(PRG), the government­in­waiting during the later stages of the war. At the war's end, only a few
NFLSV representatives were incorporated into the new national government of South Vietnam.
Richard B. Verrone
Further Reading
Pike, Douglas. (1966) Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of
South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
Tang Truong Nhu. (1985) A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its
Aftermath. New York: Vintage Books.
Thayer, Carlyle A. (1989) War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet­Nam, 1954–
60. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 Charles Scribner's Sons, COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale.
Source Citation
Verrone, Richard B. "National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam."
Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Ed. Karen Christensen and David Levinson. Vol. 4.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. 290­291. World History in Context.
Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
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